1,127 research outputs found
Manipulating Contextual Control Over Simulated Slot Machine Gambling
Situational or contextual factors involved in slot machine gambling, such as colors, are assumed to play an important role in initiating and maintaining gambling. However, there is little empirical evidence for this assumption. The present study sought to investigate the effects of manipulating two contextual factors (the background colors of computer-simulated slot machines) on participantsâ responding to two concurrently available slot machines. Following a pretest, a nonarbitrary relational training and testing procedure was used to establish contextual functions of MORE-THAN and LESS-THAN for two cues. During posttest, participants allocated the majority of their responses to the slot machine that shared nonarbitrary properties with the contextual cue for MORE-THAN, despite the identical payout probabilities of the slot machines. Overall, the present findings demonstrate that participantsâ preferences for one of two concurrently available slot machines may come under contextual control. The advantages of the present approach to investigating the role played by situational factors such as colors in maintaining slot machine gambling are discussed
Intonation in unaccompanied singing: Accuracy, drift, and a model of reference pitch memory
Copyright 2014 Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America.
The following article appeared in J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 136, 401 (2014) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4881915
Terrorism and Relational Frame Theory
The present paper presents a conceptualization of human behavior involved in terrorism from a Relational Frame Theory perspective. Relational frame theory is a contemporary behavior analytic account of human language and cognition. This account has yielded answers to many substantial empirical and theoretical psychological questions that have puzzled psychologists for some time. We believe that relational frame theory can and does account for the behavior of terrorists, those persons affected by terrorists acts directly and indirectly, as well as the entire culture of a country at large. This paper outlines the current state of psychological affairs regarding terrorism in the United States of America, traces the evolution and application of relational frame theory, and describes the prejudices that may follow from a terrorist attack or contribute to terrorist recruitment. Implications for scientists and practitioners are also presented
The environmental security debate and its significance for climate change
Policymakers, military strategists and academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits the (comparatively) long-standing âenvironmental security debateâ and asks what lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development
Recommended from our members
Improving music genre classification using automatically induced harmony rules
We present a new genre classification framework using both low-level signal-based features and high-level harmony features. A state-of-the-art statistical genre classifier based on timbral features is extended using a first-order random forest containing for each genre rules derived from harmony or chord sequences. This random forest has been automatically induced, using the first-order logic induction algorithm TILDE, from a dataset, in which for each chord the degree and chord category are identified, and covering classical, jazz and pop genre classes. The audio descriptor-based genre classifier contains 206 features, covering spectral, temporal, energy, and pitch characteristics of the audio signal. The fusion of the harmony-based classifier with the extracted feature vectors is tested on three-genre subsets of the GTZAN and ISMIR04 datasets, which contain 300 and 448 recordings, respectively. Machine learning classifiers were tested using 5 Ă 5-fold cross-validation and feature selection. Results indicate that the proposed harmony-based rules combined with the timbral descriptor-based genre classification system lead to improved genre classification rates
Quantum picturalism for topological cluster-state computing
Topological quantum computing is a way of allowing precise quantum
computations to run on noisy and imperfect hardware. One implementation uses
surface codes created by forming defects in a highly-entangled cluster state.
Such a method of computing is a leading candidate for large-scale quantum
computing. However, there has been a lack of sufficiently powerful high-level
languages to describe computing in this form without resorting to single-qubit
operations, which quickly become prohibitively complex as the system size
increases. In this paper we apply the category-theoretic work of Abramsky and
Coecke to the topological cluster-state model of quantum computing to give a
high-level graphical language that enables direct translation between quantum
processes and physical patterns of measurement in a computer - a "compiler
language". We give the equivalence between the graphical and topological
information flows, and show the applicable rewrite algebra for this computing
model. We show that this gives us a native graphical language for the design
and analysis of topological quantum algorithms, and finish by discussing the
possibilities for automating this process on a large scale.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures. Published in New J. Phys. special issue on
topological quantum computin
Cost-effectiveness of insulin pumps compared with multiple daily injections, both provided with structured education, for adults with type 1 diabetes:a health economic analysis of the Relative Effectiveness of Pumps over Structured Education (REPOSE) randomised controlled trial
Objectives
To assess the long-term cost-effectiveness of insulin pumps and Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating (pumps+DAFNE) compared with multiple daily insulin injections and DAFNE (MDI+DAFNE) for adults with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) in the UK.
Methods
We undertook a costâutility analysis using the Sheffield Type 1 Diabetes Policy Model and data from the Relative Effectiveness of Pumps over Structured Education (REPOSE) trial to estimate the lifetime incidence of diabetic complications, intervention-based resource use and associated effects on costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). All economic analyses took a National Health Service and personal social services perspective and discounted costs and QALYs at 3.5% per annum. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed on the base case. Further uncertainties in the cost of pumps and the evidence used to inform the model were explored using scenario analyses.
Setting
Eight diabetes centres in England and Scotland.
Participants
Adults with T1DM who were eligible to receive a structured education course and did not have a strong clinical indication or a preference for a pump.
Intervention
Pumps+DAFNE.
Comparator
MDI+DAFNE.
Main outcome measures
Incremental costs, incremental QALYs gained and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs).
Results
Compared with MDI+DAFNE, pumps+DAFNE was associated with an incremental discounted lifetime cost of +ÂŁ18 853 (95% CI ÂŁ6175 to ÂŁ31 645) and a gain in discounted lifetime QALYs of +0.13 (95% CI -0.70 to +0.96). The base case mean ICER was ÂŁ142 195 per QALY gained. The probability of pump+DAFNE being cost-effective using a cost-effectiveness threshold of ÂŁ20 000 per QALY gained was 14.0%. All scenario and subgroup analyses examined indicated that the ICER was unlikely to fall below ÂŁ30 000 per QALY gained.
Conclusions
Our analysis of the REPOSE data suggests that routine use of pumps in adults without an immediate clinical need for a pump, as identified by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, would not be cost-effective.
Trial registration number
ISRCTN61215213
- âŠ